Born of flames and ash (blessed life turned curse)
by Yumi Take
Summary: The first time Jet bends, it's fire. It doesn't happen again, not ever, not if he can help it. He isn't the man on the rhino. He won't smile at death like at a bonfire. (firebender in denial Jet, with a twist)


A. N. : I never imagined I'd write a Jet character study for a different AU than Viper-lizard, but here we are. Don't take everything said here at face value, Jet is very good at lying, and even better at lying to himself. Also, please be aware that people, and kids, die in this story - nothing graphic, but it still happens.

* * *

The first time Jet bends, he is eight and his house is on fire.

Mom is on the floor, her legs crushed by what used to be their roof, screaming at him to leave her, to run away, _please_ Jet don't worry just run –

Jet doesn't know where dad is.

He hears mom screaming and when he finally manages to understand what she is asking of him, he turns around and – cannot run there is fire in front of him, like a burning wall of light and mom is screaming and Jet can't _bear it_ –

The wall opens when he wants it to, and he runs.

Jet doesn't stop running, not when he hears his house come crashing down, not when he spots the man on his komodo-rhino and the way he smiles like he is just watching a bonfire, and not everything Jet knows and loves going up in flames, doesn't stop running until he is deep in the forest and his legs simply can't move anymore and give out under him as he leans against a tree.

He cries a lot, then. His feet are burning and his eyes itch with smoke and mom was crushed by the house and dad was out with the other men to greet the Fire Nation people and –

And the wall of flames opened for Jet.

He throws up.

* * *

Jet has always been the lucky type. _Spirit blessed_, mom used to say – it hurts to think of her, hurts to think of the fire and the ashes falling down and the burns on his feet –

Jet is _lucky_, and that has never been more evident for him than when he starts living in the forest.

He could get out, could walk into some village, live there instead. He could, but he can't. Not when his feet hurt and he still hears mom screaming and the flames opened for him – but he is not like that man on his rhino, will never be like that, refuses to be like that, and that's why he can't go in a village.

He tries looking for plants he knows he can eat, finds a scarab-bee nest filled with honey and somehow doesn't get stung, makes himself a sling and gets a miraculous hit on the rabbit-deer he meets one time when he isn't expecting it.

When he can't find plants he knows, he tries ones he doesn't and prays for the best. He doesn't get sick even once.

Spirit blessed, mom said, and he thinks she was right.

That's got to mean the flames didn't really open for him, because there's no way the Spirits would curse him that way when they blessed him in all the others.

* * *

He isn't the komodo-rhino man. When he gets a kill, he prays for the soul of the animal he is about to eat, thanks the Spirits for the meal they have sent on his way, and lights the fire with spark-rocks.

He doesn't smile looking at the meat cook, just waits in silence.

One day he will find the rhino man and give him a taste of his own medicine, and they'll see who's laughing then.

* * *

Time passes, Jet survives a winter.

He meets a kid in the forest, slightly younger than him, lost and hungry and her face covered in soot and dried blood. She doesn't have a voice to give him her name, so Jet takes to calling her Rabbit-Deer, because of her big ears. It annoys her, too, and she doesn't look as haunted as before. Just angrier. It's fun.

It's also better than being alone.

He shows her how to hunt, how to forage, which plants he knows they can eat, how to build tree houses. Even after she learns everything, she stays with him.

She can't start fires as well as he can, grows cold a little faster than him. It's easy to pretend he's just better at all this than her, just spent longer in the forest.

They huddle together at night and it almost feels like family.

* * *

After Rabbit, Jet picks up more kids without really meaning to.

There's Sapling, who loves pine sap more than should be allowed and doesn't even have all his big teeth yet. Longshot, who doesn't know how to talk at first, and even once he learns, just doesn't feel like it most of the time. He's also wicked good at getting an arrow wherever he wants it to go.

And then there's Smellerbee. She's different, because she didn't run from the Fire Nation. Rabbit doesn't like her at first, but Rabbit doesn't like anyone at first. Sapling doesn't care so long as she's nice to him, and Longshot is a mystery as he often is. And Jet thinks maybe it doesn't matter why she came to the forest, to him, she's here now and they can only count on each other. No way he's letting her run to Gaipan when it's overrun by Fire Nation troops, anyway.

It's just not safe.

Smellerbee is lucky, too, as much as Jet. He tells her what mom said, that it means she is Spirit blessed, one time that she brings back some honey from a place where there was nothing the day before. It makes her a little too happy, and she asks if that means the Spirits want her the way she really is.

Jet says yes. Wipes his too warm hands on his pants as he smirks and reassures her that she exists, that she is fine the way she is, the same as Longshot or Rabbit or Sapling are.

He doesn't say anything about himself.

* * *

Maybe Smellerbee is right, maybe the Spirits and the world still want Jet as he is.

Maybe whatever is wrong with him doesn't make him like the man on the rhino.

It's better to keep it away, though.

Better to pretend nothing is wrong. This way his kids will never get hurt, not by him, not by anyone.

They're safe here.

* * *

Jet finds swords at some point. They're a little too big for him, and Rabbit and Smellerbee team up to make fun of him for that. He'll grow, though, and then he knows he'll look cool as hell.

They build houses high in the trees, where no one can reach them, where no one can even see them if they don't already know where to look. Jet is always a little faster than the others to get to the top. He jokes that that's why he's their leader.

They're all family. His Freedom Fighters.

Sapling asks what they're fighting, when Jet comes up with the name. It's winter then, and all of them are sitting around a fire in the biggest house, sharing some turtle-duck Longshot hunted. Jet is never comfortable with fire inside, even when it's needed, so he talks and talks and doesn't think, until Sapling asks his question and Jet has no choice.

They're all free, that's for sure. And he thinks – he thinks being free, being alive, _staying_ alive no matter what, is their way of fighting against the Fire Nation.

It's how Jet fights, anyway. How he lives with going to sleep at night with mom's screams in his head and heat in his lungs, suffocating him.

He isn't the rhino man.

They're Freedom Fighters. They fight for freedom, for the right to exist, against anything that threatens that. That's what Jet says.

The others cheer.

* * *

In spring, they move around more. They forage and hunt, sure, but they also have fun, mostly, chasing each other high up in the trees.

Jet sees Fire Nation patrols down there sometimes, and it makes bile rise up in his throat. But then Sapling or Smellerbee say something dumb and Jet looks up again. They're with him, they're safe together. They won't be safe if they go against the Fire Nation, Jet and Rabbit know that better than anyone else.

Being alive and free is enough to fight.

They're Freedom Fighters.

Jet kicks trees and laughs when he jumps to the next branch, faster than the others can follow, farther than they can go. They joke that he can fly, and he likes the idea.

He uses his swords to move even faster, flashier, and he rarely ever falls.

He is Spirit blessed after all.

* * *

Sapling falls ill.

He has a fever, grows weaker every day, and no amount of hunting and selling what they can to Earth folks is enough to afford medicine.

Jet doesn't know what to do.

All of a sudden he is eight again, watching mom crushed in their burning house, powerless to do anything but run away. He can't save anyone. Can't keep anyone alive, and that means he can't fight.

The Fire Nation troops have medicine, he knows. But he can't risk his Freedom Fighters' lives, can't kill them this way – can't keep them safe either.

* * *

Sapling dies in summer.

They bury him near a spider-ant colony, between the roots of a pine tree.

* * *

The next time Jet sees a patrol, he can't bear to look at it. One of their members is injured, their medic or whatever bandaging his leg, and Jet sees the open box of medical supplies calling to him, like a burning wall screaming at him to pass through.

Why should _they_ have what Sapling couldn't ?

Jet stops on the tree above the patrol, Longshot at his back, staring through Jet's soul like he knows what's going on in there. He probably does.

It's a small patrol, just three men, one of them injured and another busy with the bandages. Jet asks Longshot to cover him and jumps down on the back of the third man.

It's a lot easier than he thought it would be before. He doesn't know if all of them died, and doesn't care. The man he jumped on is definitely dead, skull bashed against the ground when he fell, the back of Jet's sword going through his neck.

Jet doesn't feel happy about it. He doesn't. All he feels is cold anger as he slashes at the medic while Longshot strikes the injured one. Jet looks at the three of them one last time before leaving, supplies in hand. He wants to spit on them, to shout in burning hot fury, wants them to know how much he hates them, wants them to fear him and beg for mercy the way mom screamed when the house fell –

He doesn't do it. He isn't the man on the rhino, doesn't smile at burning houses like a child at a bonfire.

His eyes and lungs are burning.

* * *

Time passes, more kids join his Freedom Fighters. No one can fill the gap Sapling left, but it feels a little less empty with more people around.

They're family, the way it always was.

Jet attacks more patrols, steals more supplies, medicine and food rations and clothes and weapons and everything he can get his hands on, with Longshot above him to keep him safe. He needs more if he wants to keep his ever-growing family safe. He owes it to them.

Smellerbee joins in, and so does Rabbit. They both fight like fireworks, explosive and wild, and maybe a little too reckless.

Rabbit isn't Spirit blessed like Smellerbee or Jet are.

They have to flee before they can grab her body, can't take the risk of going back afterwards. Jet puts a rabbit-deer on the spider-ant colony instead.

* * *

He doesn't understand how the Spirits can allow his kids to die like that when they let ashmakers roam the earth.

Can't accept that these monsters live when his Freedom Fighters die, that dad died when the man on the rhino laughed, that the flames opened for him and not for mom.

Jet flies to the top of the highest tree and claws at the trunk until he can breathe again.

The night is dark enough that it's easy to pretend he doesn't see the burn marks where his hands were.

* * *

Jet still attacks more patrols, risks himself to the encampment once or twice even, to get his hands on weapons and blasting jelly.

He doesn't always do it to steal anymore. Sometimes it's just too much to look at the soldiers walking around like they own the place. He doesn't tell that to the kids, though, always finds another reason for them. They still want to be at his side, still want to live and fight with him, and he can't risk their lives for nothing but his own need to see ashmakers die at his hands.

He can't take their lives and make them his own, it wouldn't be fair.

Sometimes, when he kills, it feels so good he can't stop smiling. Feels like he's getting back at these monsters for everything, for mom, for dad, for Sapling and Rabbit.

Then he thinks of the man on the rhino and he wants to puke.

* * *

He's been in the forest for almost as long as he lived with mom and dad now. His family grew more and more over time, more kids joining in – Sneers, Salve, Pipsqueak and The Duke, and so many others.

The Duke is so small when he arrives, looks even tinier on Pipsqueak's back, and Jet thinks back to Sapling.

He loves The Duke with all his heart. He loves all his kids, really, but The Duke is so full of life and laughter, young and bright and like the sun. He brings fun and mischief all around the tree houses, and Jet can forget for a moment.

It never lasts long.

Jet can't live with the knowledge that ashmakers are free to walk in the valley, that Gaipan opened its doors to them, that some disgusting _traitors_ even married the monsters, when he's had to go back to the spider-ant colony and dig more times than he wants to think about.

He wants them gone, _needs_ them gone, needs to make them pay and to keep his kids safe.

Near the dam, he sees the steam floating upwards from the ground, sees the dried up reservoir and the town down below, and the Fire Nation encampment somewhat farther away.

A few years ago, he would've cared about the town, even a little. They are Earth, after all. But his kids died and Gaipan welcomed the soldiers, and they lost their right to live as Earth Kingdom.

If they want to marry ashmakers so much, they should just die as Fire Nation.

There's water under his feet, in the earth, Jet can feel it pull at him like the moon pulls at the sea. Can feel it burning to break free, burning to break the dam, can already hear the wave come crashing down and washing away the dirt soiling the valley and finally making sure his kids are _safe_.

He can't lose family again.

The thought of drowning out the fire brings a smile to his face.

* * *

The Duke gets burned during an attack.

Jet watches this happen from the other side of the clearing and he sees white.

He screams, The Duke screams, mom screams and tells him to run and the flames rise and rise and burn everything to the ground and Jet wants it to _stop_ – wants it to go on and burn him as well until there's nothing left but _ashes_.

The ash falls like snow as his Freedom Fighters stare at him and Jet laughs. The soldiers around him are all dead, the one who dared hurt The Duke burned to a crisp, and he laughs more still at the irony.

It's a disaster. Charred earth and bodies, unnatural slashes on flesh and trees that look like the air itself was turned into a weapon, and a pillar of ice emerging from the cauldron, impaling the cook's corpse.

Jet sees the feet dangling in the air, blood dripping with ice shards, and it's enough to send him back into hysterics.

It's beautiful. Ash falling like snow, ice sparkling all around like the sparks of a bonfire. The knowledge that the wall may have opened for him, but he was always Spirit blessed anyway. He breathes freely. Looks at his Freedom Fighters, at his kids, and smiles with confidence.

This is the beginning of a new era.


End file.
